Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Love and Evolutionary anthropology

Anthropology studies many topics including love. Why do humans feel love? What is the evolutionary advantage to pair bonding? What happens to the brain when couples are in a relationship?

Anthropologist Helen Fisher is interviewed about her research on couples for Valentines Day. Humans require pair bonding in order to raise healthy children and there may be chemistry to support this action. I found it interesting that couples in long-term relationships have a strong sense of calm compared to couples who are in short-term relationships, who feel a sense of "addiction". I wonder if many couples struggle to move on from the short-term relationship into a long-term relationship once the feeling of addiction wears thin.

"I’ve long maintained that romantic love is an addiction — a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well and a perfectly terrible addiction when it’s going poorly," said Rutgers research professor Helen Fisher, a member of Human Evolutionary Studies in the anthropology department in New Brunswick.